Thanksgiving & Longwood

Hello everyone!
We had a great Thanksgiving (although I still had to feed the horses that day). We went to Mom-mom's house and ate with the family + Aunt Frances and her family. Zoe now has two bottom teeth and 4 upper teeth. The teeting process is definately not a fun one:)
Zoe is in the beginning phase of cruising. She loves to stand at the coffee table (see pic).


On the last day of vacation we went to Longwood Gardens to see the lights. The weather was very nice, I didn't even have to wear a jacket! The Christmas display was wonderful, we will definately make it a yearly tradition. No pictures could show the beauty of it so I am just posting a few pics of us before it became dark.
~Jen

Trip to DC

Zoe & her Dad at John & Alex's house outside DC.

Zoe in front of a Mary Cassatt painting at the Hirshhorn.

Panda & her cub eating breakfast at the National Zoo.

National zoo entrance. This is Zoe's 3rd zoo trip this year!

Halloween, etc.

Zoe & her Mom at the last day of the PA Rennaissance Faire sitting with the Angel of Death. How cute:)
It was a very windy and cold day and we didn't stay long.

Zoe at her 9 month appointment with Dr. King. She is such a nice Doctor. We really like her!
Zoe weighed 18 lbs. 3 0z. and was 28 inches long.
Lucky for her there were no shots at this visit.

This pictures was taken at Glenn & Emily's house right before we went trick or treating in Millersville.

Another Halloween picture. This one was at Pap's house infront of his highly decorated spooky yard. That is a giant bat behind me and a mummy in the background. Yikes!

Cute picture

I love this picture I took of Zoe & Kevin this weekend so I had to share it. Not much new happening. Zoe is teething so she is quite grumpy some days. I have the Pumpkin Carve on Thursday in Chadds Ford and a pre-carve party the night before. It will be the first time Kevin has Zoe to himself.
Jen

Halloween Approaches

It is getting colder here now and it really feels like Halloween is only a few weeks around the corner. I wanted to post this last big patch of pictures, many of which feature Zoe outside sitting on a blanket in the sun. Those days are now over as autumn really starts to reveal itself with changing colors, falling leaves, and a crisp snap in the air. It is a wonderful time of year. Jen and I can't wait for Halloween, and its decorations, and the Pumpkin Carve that Jen and her mom will do in a few weeks as well. I'll keep Jen and Zoe's Halloween outfits a secret until I post the pictures here afterwards (of course).

Zoe gets bigger and more adventurous with every passing day. She still doesn't have much of an interest in crawling, but she LOVES to stand and we feel that she is just going to bypass crawling and move straight to walking. It is amazing how long she can stand by herself, just holding onto a chair and how she will reach out with one hand. She also tries to pull herself up all the time. It won't be long before she moves into this next stage, the baby gates go up and Jen and I start to chase her around this place!

More to follow,

K.

Dog Kiss

Happy Smile

Cat Lover

Sunshine Baby

Doodle thinks it is his Boppy

Sippy Cup Fun

Sippy Cup Fun the Sequel

Bubble Head

I love this picture of Zoe

The Great "Dog Nose Surprise" Picture

Hershey Park Chocolate World Happy!

We went to Hershey PA to visit Pop-Pop and walked to HersheyPark Chocolate World where Zoe experienced her first "ride" with the newly remodeled Chocolate World ride. We had a fun time and a nice visit and Pop-pop treated us all to lunch and some sweet dark chocolate treats! We haven't seen him in a while, so it was a nice visit and we hope to be back soon!

Great picture of smiles and a pretty leaf that Zoe liked.

Outside Chocolate World.

Inside Chocolate World; 3 generations of MacNeills.

"Cows that sing?" - Weird..........

Vernal Equinox

The first day of autumn and yeah, it's been a while. Going back to school has chewed into my free time and I just haven't gotten around to posting as much. Ehh, what cha gonna do? Anyway...

Zoe turned 8 months this past Tuesday. She keeps getting more and more interesting with each passing day. She says "mamamamamama" and "dadadadadada" and gets on quite a roll when she starts. We think she knows both our cats names now, so that if you say "MeeMee" or "Zazu" she will look around for them. She loved to play with Zazu by holding a cat toy that is a long stick with a string and tassle and she will flip it around for her to chase. She isn't quite crawling yet, but she explores with her upper torso, meaning she moves around a lot with her upper body while sitting still. She loves to stand and we think she might be one of theose kids that sorta skips crawling and goes right to walking.

Until next time, here are some new pictures. I will try to post again soon, but don't hold me to it.

K.

I love this last picture and I saved a big version of it can be my desktop on my computer at school.

behold the beauty of the giraffes

One last summer post before it ends. On Friday we went to the Baltimore to squeeze in one last weekday summer adventure before school starts next week. It was really a lot of fun and Zoe seemed much more interested in watching the animals than she did when we went to the Philly Zoo in late June. It was a bit hot and humid that day, but we had a great time, especially watching the giraffes. Zoe really liked watching them and there was one that seemed to like watching her, in fact, when we moved up a pathway to check out an Okapi, the giraffe seemed to follow us over there. Then we read the sign and saw that one giraffe was named Zoe, so we just KNEW that was the one that was following us! We got a ton of great pictures there; enjoy.


K.

Here we are checking out all the giraffes.

A nice lady took a picture of all 3 of us.

The giraffe wants a closer look at that baby!

Now we are on the other side of the enclosure, but that giraffe is following us.

2 Zoes?

At the petting zoo.

Taking the Zoo Tram back to the car.

the end of summer

Yeah, we have been off for a while, but we have at least ONE excuse that isn't our fault. Verizon screwed us by taking 18 days to fix our DSL that went out on 07/31 and was only fixed on 08/18/06. It took hours on the phone almost every other day during that time and was extreme frustrating not to be able to get on -line to check e-mail and update this blog. Anyhoo, we are now back.


Ok, so summer is not officially over for a few more weeks, butI will be going back to school next week on Monday for my first teacher day with Thursday 08/31 being the first day for students. As far as I am concerned, summer is over, so I am ready for cooler weather and the leaves to turn almost immediately. Unfortunately, that won't happen, I will just hope for no late summer heatwaves for my non-air-conditioned school I will have a VERY new year with a new classroom asstistant, 2 new principals and probably 6-8 new students. It will be quite an adjustment from hanging out with Jen and Zoe 24/7. I will miss them both, but I try to look on the bright side and realize that I will be home most days shortly after 3pm, I have loads of time off for holidays and such, and many more summers off to enjoy with my family.


Zoe just keeps getting better and better. She is even more animated now and can sit up on her own for long stretches of time playing with her toys. Her fine motor skills are developing nicely, she loves to pick up objects and then roate her wrist back and forth to get a better look at it. She laughs at the cats when they are playing and loves to take a bath now. She was 17 1/2 lbls, 26 1/2 inches at her 6 month check up in July and J and I feel that she is bigger now that she just past the 7 month mark last Saturday.


On a side note, my sister Karen and brother-in-law Kelvin moved to Florida near Daytona last week, We wish them well and hope to see them soon and Karen BETTER be checking this blog for pictures often. You hear me Sis?!?!


Now that we are back online and back into more of a routine with school and all, we will try to post at least every 2 weeks, but will continue to shoot for every weekend.


peace to all,
K.

bonus pictures